Friedrich Gentz
250 years ago on May 2nd 1764 , Friedrich Gentz was born in Wroclaw, a journalist, a diplomat and a politician; he was under the influenced by Immanuel Kant while studying at Königsberg in his youth; the events of the revolution in France and reading a book about it written by E. Burke (which he translated into German ) steered him towards (moderate) conservatism; on the pages of the weekly he has founded the Neue deutsche Monatsschrift, then (1799-1800) the Historisches Journal, he advocated the principles of the British constitutionalism and the need to resist the aggressive French republic; he was also the first German publicist who discovered the ideas of American federalists; in a memorandum to the King of Prussia (1797) he advocated freedom of the press and trade; from the beginning of the next century, he was an active promoter of the Triple Alliance of Prussia, Austria and England; from 1809 he passed from the Prussian to the Austrian service (and was ennobled), becoming a trusted advisor to the foreign minister (and since 1821 also the Chancellor) Metternich; he was a secretary at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) and the Congress of the Holy Alliance in Verona (1822), so he became known as the "Secretary of Europe." He died in 1832.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
Kategoria: Reactionary Diary
